by R. K. Ryals
Until Ray met me at the door, class list in hand.
“I put the Griffin girl in the afternoon slot,” he informed me.
My eyes scanned the paper. “With the boys I worked with last week? Are you kidding me?”
“It’s a good crew. All of them, and they’re a beginner class. Do them up good, capo.” He saluted me with his fedora.
“What does that even mean?” I followed him into the club.
Mouse skipped rope not far from the door. “Want to warm up with me?” he called.
My eyes remained on Ray. “What made you put Deena with them?”
“Because she’s got the same look to her that some of those boys have. Roger, especially.”
“Okay.” I sighed. “I just hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Never question the Boss. I started a crumb, at the bottom, capo.”
“English is obviously his second language,” I mumbled, glancing at Mouse. “I’m going to warm up on my own,” I told him.
He kept skipping rope, sweat dripping down the side of his face.
The day passed quietly. Men, women, girls, and boys coming in and out of the club. Some of them for classes, others to workout.
I trained two of the groups, stopped for lunch, and then spent an hour with one of the other trainers getting myself ready for the ring again. I’d been out of the circuit too long.
“They’re coming in quick,” Ray informed me later that afternoon.
Throwing a towel around my neck, I stiffened when the door opened, admitting the quarreling teens I’d worked with the week before. Roger and the redhead, who they all called Carrot, were at it again.
“You’re such a fucking dick,” Roger told him.
Carrot scowled. “At least I’ve got a dick, ass wipe.”
They tensed, ready to throw punches, and I met them at the door. “Another time, boys. Leave it outside.”
Roger glared. “Oh, look, the delinquent is still here.”
“Start stretching,” I ordered, not taking the bait.
The door re-opened, and Deena marched in, her face tight and uncertain. Her eyes found me, and she sneered, throwing me her middle finger.
No one followed her in. “Tansy with you?” I asked.
Deena shrugged. “She’s working at the orchard again. Nana had Vanessa from the clinic drop me off. She’ll be picking me up, too. What? You don’t want me if my sister doesn’t come with the bargain?”
My eyes narrowed in on her face, and I realized just how young Deena looked. She was in that awkward stage, her lips puckered over her braces. Acne, mostly small spots, dotted her nose and chin. Her curly hair was frizzy from the summer heat, the mass wrestled into a messy ponytail. She was thin, having hit a growth spurt before her body could catch up, leaving her gangly. She was going to look back at fourteen and hate it.
“I’m here for you, Deena. Not your sister.”
“Whatever.” She looked at the room. “Is this a private lesson?”
“Nope.” I pointed at the group of boys grumbling on the mats. “That’s your crew.”
“Crew?”
Shit! Ray’s rubbing off on me.
“Your group,” I corrected. Walking her over to the boys, I nodded at them. “Welcome to a hardheaded bunch of wannabes.”
There was no bite to my words, but even if there had been, the horror on the boys’ faces completely overshadowed any sarcasm.
“What the hell?” Roger ranted, throwing his hands up at me. “It’s not bad enough we have a loser trainer.” He glanced at Deena. “Now, we have that, too? What kind of joint is this?”
“An equal opportunity one,” I quipped, unfazed.
“You got a problem with me? Or my gender?” Deena asked, hands on hip.
Angry, that kid was something else.
Roger eyed her. “Darlin’, fighting you would be like fighting a broom.”
She glared, her cheeks flushing. “You know what they say about boys with big mouths?” She held two fingers up, pinching them close together. “Small dicks. Itty bitty ones.”
I choked. “Holy hell! Let’s leave genitalia out of this, all right?” My gaze slid to Deena. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear you say dick like you know more about it than I think a fourteen year old should know.” I gestured at the mats. “We stretch first. After that, we’ll do some low key stuff. Talk about the kind of exercises that work best with this kind of program. Basic stuff first. I’ll show you how to wrap your hands and use the bags. Then we’ll work on stance and so forth. For now, follow my lead. This isn’t meant to be a one-day process. It’s a commitment.”
I showed her how to stretch, and then stepped back, letting her join the boys. They threw her surreptitious glances, snickering amongst themselves. I knew from their looks that they wondered how she got here, what she’d done to get thrown in with the special cases.
“Can you tell us what makes you qualified to teach us anything, Mr. Lockston?” Roger asked once we’d moved past the stretching and into bag work.
I was going over exercises with Deena, and she glanced at me, a smirk on her face.
“Eli,” I corrected, my hard eyes finding Roger’s face. “Not because I mind respect, but because I prefer not to be called Mr. Lockston.” Handing Deena the notebook I’d been outlining the exercises on, I faced the boys. “Let me set the record straight. I’m not here to talk about me. Who I am and where I came from because it doesn’t matter. Not here.” I gestured at all of them. “Same goes for you. I’m positive most of you have terrible backgrounds. Much worse than mine. I don’t care.”
Taking a step forward, I stared them down. “Understand that. I. Don’t. Care. I’m not here to counsel you, to figure out what kind of issues you’ve got going on in your head. I’m here to show you how to fight them out. I don’t have to know what they are to do that. I’m not here to heal you or get you back on the straight and narrow. That’s what the boxing is for, and it will work. If you let it.”
“It’s a bunch of shit,” Deena groused. “All of it.”
“You’ve got a big mouth on you, sweetheart,” Carrot called, winking.
The look I gave him was cold enough to freeze hell. “Do you have a problem with me or each other?”
“It just seems stupid, is all,” Deena huffed. “What’s punching a few bags supposed to achieve?”
My gaze roamed the group. “Do you all agree with her?”
No one replied. Even if they did agree with her, they weren’t going to admit it because she’d been the one to say it. I was beginning to doubt Ray’s intuition putting her in this class.
“If you come in here, and you look at boxing the way you see it now, then that’s all it will ever be,” I said. “Punching a few bags.”
“What’s it about then?” Roger asked, his stance defensive. “It’s fighting, man. There ain’t nothing philosophical about it. It’s just beating up shit and people.”
“Eli,” I said firmly. “I’m not ‘man’ or ‘dude’, remember?” Moving next to him, I pointed at the ring. “You see that? That ring isn’t just a ring. That’s your house. When you step into it, you’re bringing everything about you, what defines you, into that house, too. The good and the bad. Most of all, you’re bringing a shit load of respect. For yourself and for the person you’re fighting. Because that ring is his house, too, and he’s bringing everything that makes him him into your space with your issues. So, you’ve got a decision to make. When you step into that ring for the first time against your first opponent, do you want him to be fighting a man,” I glanced at Deena, “or woman, or do you want him fighting the kid you’re trying to escape?”
Silence followed, each of them staring at the ring. I knew what they were thinking. I’d been there before in their shoes. I was a thirteen-year-old boy full of piss and vinegar the first time I put on a pair of boxing gloves.
My old trainer’s words rang through my head, and I said them aloud because these kids needed to hear them
. “You can’t just bring one emotion into the ring. You’ve got to bring what you want into the ring, too. Not just what you want to destroy, but also what you want to save. You’ve got to bring your past, your present, and your future into that ring, and then decide what you need to let go of, what you want to keep, and what you want to strive for.”
I left them with those words, letting them return to the bags while I spent the rest of class catching Deena up with the other beginners.
“I think,” Deena said suddenly, interrupting a lesson I was giving her about safety, her voice low, “we might have been different if my father hadn’t given up on us, you know? I don’t know how much you know about my family, but my mom … she got taken away. Dad, the way he became afterward and the things he did, turned us all into monsters, you know?”
Her words had nothing to do with boxing, but they fell out of her, raw and unchecked.
Glancing up at a clock on the wall, I realized class was technically over, but I wasn’t ready to let them leave yet. “Those are some heavy words for someone so young.”
“Words ain’t shit compared to what that experience made us. Especially Jet and Tansy. They had to become adults.” She shrugged. “They didn’t do it so well, either.”
“You hate them.”
She glanced at me, eyes cold. “I don’t know how I feel about them. They changed too much. I don’t know them. Jet used to be this really awesome athlete. He played basketball, and he was so good at it. He had colleges watching him, but when Mom passed, he just gave it up. And Tansy … she was really popular. I mean, I had friends just because I was her sister. She was beautiful.”
My gaze fell to my hands, to the memory of Tansy’s wounded palm. “She’s still beautiful,” I murmured.
Deena snorted. “You should have seen her before. Before she changed the way she looked, the clothes she wore, her hair … all of it. She gave it all up. She turned me into a fucking laughingstock at school.”
“Deena—”
“I know,” she stopped me, backing away, “you’re going to tell me I’m being selfish, right? That I need to look at the bigger picture. What kind of shit is that?”
My gaze rose to the boys behind her. “Class is over, guys. See you later this week, okay?”
They looked up, their conversation stilling, and then resuming again. Gloves came off, mumbles chasing them as they filed toward the door. Only Roger lagged behind, his gaze flicking to the boxing ring before he grabbed his duffel bag and loped after his friends.
Deena watched him.
“I wasn’t going to tell you you’re selfish,” I told Deena, drawing her attention back to me. “We’re all selfish. Every single damn one of us, and I wasn’t in that house. I didn’t see what you, your brother, and your sister went through after your mom passed. But I like your sister. A lot. I like what she is now. I don’t think the changes in her make her ugly. I think they make her layered. I think they make all of you layered, and I think your layers are going to make you one hell of a fighter. Stick with this, okay?” I gestured at the gym.
She stared at me. “Why are you being nice to us? You like Tansy that much?”
I laughed. “Hell if I know, kid. I’m just trying to work off some court shit. Am I attracted to your sister? Yeah. I don’t really know if it goes further than that yet. I’m not even sure if I’m capable of going further than that with anyone, but I kind of understand your pain, and I think that helps.”
She frowned. “I think I hate you.”
“I think I’d feel left out if you didn’t hate me.”
She smiled. “That’s good then.” Her gaze flicked to the clock. “Gotta go.”
“Bring a duffel bag next time. You’ll need it,” I called after her.
Across the gym, Ray walked toward me. “That class seemed to go well.”
My gaze found the boxing ring. “Can you do me a favor?” I asked. “Can you place an order for me? Six white punching bags, six red permanent markers, and six black permanent markers. I’ll cover all of the costs. Better yet, my grandfather will.” I threw him an impish grin.
“Can I ask why?”
“Am I required to answer?”
Ray studied me. “No,” he said finally. “Cover all of the costs, and I’ll place the order.”
I offered him my hand, and he took it. We shook on it.
He walked away, but I remained and stared at the ring.
My house. My issues, the good and the bad.
“Want to spar?” Mouse called, his words breaking me out of my reverie. He stood to the side of the ring, a grin on his face.
An answering smile broke out on mine. “Yeah,” I replied. “Won’t take me long to beat your ass.”
He snorted, heading for the ring. “Don’t underestimate me.”
Grabbing my gear, I followed him.
The ring. My house. My issues, the good and the bad.
TWENTY-NINE
Tansy
I rolled the window down as soon as I pulled into the orchard drive, letting the warm, fresh-smelling air assault me. It combed my hair and stuffed my nostrils full of honeysuckle and wildflowers.
A bee buzzed into the van when I parked, and I shooed it out, keeping the window down as I stepped free of the vehicle, my gaze going to the house.
Pops waited, his daunting figure folded into a rocking chair, a glass of tea in his hands.
“Do you always do this?” I asked. “Intimidate the people who work for you?”
“Nothing less intimidating than an old man with an iced tea,” he called.
Throwing him a look, I walked to the back of the van, pulled it open, and threw a bag of mulch over my shoulder.
“I beg to differ, Mr. Lockston.”
“Pops,” he told me, rocking. The chair creaked, adding a comfortable sound to the ones I already associated with the orchard.
“Is that the tea with the mint?” I asked, setting the bag on the ground next to the flower bed before going for another.
“One and the same.”
“It’s good,” I admitted. “You’ll have to tell your cook I really enjoy it.”
“Cook?”
Lifting another bag, I glanced at him. “You don’t have a cook?” My gaze flicked to the large house. “But that dinner the other night … are you saying you cooked it?”
Pops laughed. “Hells bells, no. I don’t have the patience for cooking. That was my wife’s thing, and my daughter would catch herself on fire just so people would send her sympathy cards. I had that food catered in. I have all of our food catered in.”
Dropping another bag of mulch, I paused and shaded my eyes. “Wouldn’t it be easier to get a cook?”
He continued to rock—back and forth, back and forth. “I don’t like the idea of servants. Makes me feel too rich.”
“Well, that’s what you are, isn’t it? Rich?”
He smiled, the gesture lifting his face. “I’d probably understand it more if I hadn’t spent most of my life poor. I don’t have any use for servants. I like my privacy too much.” Saluting me with his glass, he added, “As for the tea, it comes in a gallon from this gas station down the road. Seriously amazing. Add a squeeze of lemon and a sprig of mint, and it tastes just like the way my mama used to make it.”
I laughed.
Pops’ face sobered. “You are very pretty when you smile, Ms. Griffin.”
“Tansy,” I told him, “and thank you.”
He returned to his rocking, and I started splitting open mulch bags with a butter knife I kept in my gardening tools. It came in handy when digging near roots, and my gaze kept falling to its edge. The knife wasn’t sharp, but that didn’t matter. It was all about the pressure applied.
Pops leaned forward in his rocking chair, and it creaked loudly. “I admit, I’m a little curious about you, Tansy. All I have so far is that you’re the local vet’s granddaughter, and my grandson seems to have developed a connection with you in a short period of time. Oh, and you are very
good with flowers.”
“It gets really hot here, Mr. Lockston,” I replied, redirecting the conversation. “You should think about planting flowers that can handle high heat summers. Butter daisies, Lantanas, and Rose Moss are all good choices and very pretty.”
He studied me. “You’re a lot like Eli. The way you back away from people, but he lets them in better than you do. He’d never admit it. He likes people to think he’s a crotchety bastard who couldn’t give a damn about anyone.”
Scooping out mulch, I started spreading it around the azaleas I had weeded the day before. “This will help keep moisture in the ground,” I told him.
Pops sat back in the chair, watching me.
I’d gone through three bags of mulch and was starting a list of flowers to pick up when I broke. It was the staring that did it, the way Pops studied me like he had all the time in the world. No one had that much time.
“I’m nothing special,” I said, turning to the porch. “If that’s what you’re after. I’m just a girl living with her grandmother, getting up every day to find things to keep me busy in a place that doesn’t have much busy stuff, and I’m … just here.”
“Nothing special, huh?” Pops asked. “Come here, Tansy. I want to show you something.”
He stood, waved me onto the porch, and then opened the house’s screen door.
Cautiously, I climbed the stairs, placing my list on the porch railing, before proceeding him inside.
The door slammed shut behind us, startling me, and I jumped.
“You’ve got nothing to fear from me,” Pops assured.
He ushered me into a very nice living room, the space so white, it blinded me. White furniture, light carpet, and polished wooden accents.
“This,” he said, picking up a framed photo from the fireplace mantle, “was my wife. Her name was Charlotte.”
He handed it to me, and I took it, suddenly extremely aware of the dirt on my hands. “I don’t—”
“I’m not worried about the soil,” Pops promised. “Just look at it.”
My gaze fell to the photograph. A middle-aged woman sat perched in a garden, a white trellis arched over her, the painted wood covered in roses—white, yellow, and red. A myriad of other flowers grew around her feet. She wore a pair of navy dress pants with a white and navy striped short-sleeve shirt, and a crocheted white shawl. She had auburn hair, the strands pulled up and away from her face, curling softly around two pearl clips. A smile lit her face, her eyes creased in laughter.